


Needs of the Many

by KayinTruth



Category: Original Work
Genre: Gen, Science Fiction, bamf!humans, space racism
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2016-09-18
Updated: 2016-09-18
Packaged: 2018-08-15 19:51:59
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,283
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/8070502
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/KayinTruth/pseuds/KayinTruth
Summary: “I think my leg is broken,” M’lani leaks more, from the one’s disconcertingly few eyes. “Can you-“ the one’s forelegs reach down, straining to reach the one’s legs without bending. Another keen, that sounds like the beginning of a song Frim enjoyed as a pupae. “Tech-tech- Frim, can you see? My legs, are they straight? Do they look right?”





	

**Author's Note:**

  * Inspired by [untitled prompt](https://archiveofourown.org/external_works/230326) by iztarshi. 



> [xposted from tumblr]

“You’re’re leak-k-king,” Frim’s voice modulator and translator stutters. The crates that had fallen on them had badly damaged it, nearly crushing their neck in the process. Frim think that if they had not been wearing the modulator around their neck in the first place, the crate would have killed them.   
Their neck hurts, and they cannot move their legs, any of them except one, whose final segment twitches madly out of control. 

Beside them, the one to whom they were speaking, the human, M’lani makes a sound remarkably like one Frim would expect to hear from some of their own kind, high pitched, quiet and keening. The one’s thoracic cavity (Frim can never remember what they are called in non-insectoid species) hitches, expanding and contracting in a quite concerning way. 

“It hurts,” the one says, eventually. “I think my leg is broken.” M’lani leaks more, from the one’s disconcertingly few eyes. “Can you-“ the one’s forelegs reach down, straining to reach the one’s legs without bending. Another keen, that sounds like the beginning of a song Frim enjoyed as a pupae. “Tech-tech- Frim, can you see? My legs, are they straight? Do they look right?” 

Frim cannot turn their head, cannot move at all. “W-we-ee ar-r sorr-rr-rr-ry-ry.” The translator futzes, a soft sound that Frim’s ears hear but M’lani’s likely cannot. Their next words have only the modulator applied, slowing the frequencies down to a comfortable level, “We can’t move, We can’t move our head.”

“Shit,” they hear, and then more keening like singing, and the one presses on their far side, flipping the one’s body over and using forelegs to pull M’lani’s body closer. 

M’lani’s eyes look into and over Frim’s, two hands with five fingers running over Frim’s thorax. The one’s eyes are still leaking, a thing Frim have never seen before, but the translator is still broken when they ask. 

“Okay, okay,” M’lani says, the one’s own translator, still at the one’s own, soft throat still functioning perfectly. It is one of the very, very few things their species’ share: having their primary sound-making organs in their necks. “You can’t talk. Can you move? Blink- shit,” the one says again. “Your species can’t blink. Okay, whine once for yes, twice for no. Understand?” 

Frim whine once. 

“Great. Okay,” the one says. “Can you move at all?”

Twice.

“ _Fuck_ ,” the one says. “Do you hurt anywhere?” 

Twice. Frim cannot feel any cracks in their casing, but they cannot feel anything at all below the neck. 

“Do you know if it’ll hurt you to move?”

Frim do not understand. They try to say so, and M’lani, very intelligent for a human – one of the many species that are ones instead of manys – seems to get it. 

“I mean I need to move you. If there’s another crash like that last one, these crates are going to start bouncing all over again.”

Once.

“Um, wait. So it is going to hurt?”

Twice. 

“It’s not going to hurt.”

Frim whine three times, because M’lani is, of course, hampered by being one, and did not specify a number to express uncertainty. 

“Yes, and no…?” the one guesses, and then, “oh. You don't know. Okay, three can be you don’t know.”

Frim whine three times again, to show they agree. 

“Okay, well, I have to try, so scream if it hurts.”

M’lani is the one who screams, a constant pattern of rises and falls of tone that Frim’s minds insist on interpreting into words, nonsense and garbled. 

The one settles Frim under a storage riser, and stacks crates around them, arranged in a pattern that should prevent any from shifting and crushing Frim against the wall. 

“Okay,” the one says, and Frim feel a warm weight settle on the back of their head. “Okay, I’m going to go get help,” the one says, and then there is tension and warmth around the connector to Frim’s translator. It comes off with a snap, and Frim ask, 

“What are you doing?” and they can tell; without the modulator their voice is too far outside the human range of hearing to even be audible. 

M’lani’s face does not change, while the one’s hands reach up to the clasp on their own translator, and _snick_ it off. 

Human fingers are often called clever, but are rarely mentioned beyond their primary reputation. Frim can feel appreciation in all of their hearts as M’lani’s hands snap the translator shut around Frim’s neck. 

“What are you doing?” they ask again, and M’lani bears the one’s teeth in a smile. Frim knows of humans to do this often, to all crew members, often while touching. Frim and M’lani are not well known. M’lani has never looked at Frim like this. 

Whatever the one answers, Frim do not understand it. 

The one turns away, one leg functioning improperly, not taking weight properly. The one is making noises like singing again, with every step. 

There is much time that passes. Frim do not know how much time. They are not good at judging time anywhen, but particularly when they are distressed. 

M’lani does not return. They are very distressed, and they only grow more as they perceive time passing without knowing how much. 

The ship does shudder again, and Frim wonder, afraid as they cannot remember ever having been, what is happening. The crates shift; Frim fear they will fall. 

But M’lani did well – the one has arranged the non-uniformly sized crates in such a way that the support struts for the storage riser block the closest crates from shifting towards her, and the closer crates block the farther ones.

But then there are voices, intelligible and loud. “Technician Frim?” a voice calls, and in their relief, they only note that the one has forgotten that they are _Technicians_ Frim, as ones often do. 

“Yes!” they call back. “We are here! We cannot move!”

“Hold on a second, we’ll get you out,” the voice promises.

  
The crates are moved aside, quickly and efficiently. There are four humans there, three of the type like M’lani, with protrusions on their thoracic cavities, and one without. Two are of the security team, by their uniforms, two from Medical. They have an artificial cocoon with them. 

“Dr. Watts told us where you were,” one of the medical personnel says, while the other directs the security ones in lifting Frim into the cocoon. Frim belatedly remember that humans paradoxically have multiple names for their singular selves.

“M’lani,” Frim ask before they close the cocoon into comforting, healing darkness. “Is that one alright?” 

The medical personnel pauses. “She’s fine,” the one says slowly, and then in a higher pitch that Frim have learned means positivity and happiness in humans, “You know us humans, we’ll walk on a broken leg for miles if we have to. She’s resting, but I’m sure she’ll be happy to see you once you’re healed up.” 

“We will be happy to know that that one is well, too,” Frim say. 

Frim have not spent much time with humans on this ship, or on any other ship they have worked on. They are glad that they chose to pursue work on ships that employed humans.   
(Of course, they had done so because such ships were almost always run by better captains with better reputations; they have always preferred their own kind for company).

They think they will continue to choose to do so, as the humans close the cocoon and Frim feel it lift. Perhaps, when Frim wake they will seek out M’lani, to thank that one personally. 

Many had told them of humans’ excessive pack-bonding instincts. None had told them how nice it felt to be pack-bonded to. 


End file.
